Size
7,000 sq ft
Location
Peterborough
Activity
Associations & Charities
Duration
7 weeks
National housing association, Accent Housing has taken receipt of an exciting new, collaborative workplace in Peterborough.
We’ve worked together to design and deliver the 7,000 sq ft fit-out at WestPoint, an award-winning Grade A building at Peterborough Business Park.
Designed to function as a ‘community hub’, this impressive multipurpose space contains a variety of settings that promote inclusivity and enable all employees to thrive.
Accent Housing is a housing association that has been providing a range of quality and affordable homes across England since 1966.
Its 20,500 homes are spread over the north, east and south of the country, providing housing for 35,000 customers.
As part of its corporate strategy, it plans to build at least another 1,500 affordable rented and low-cost home ownership homes by 2024.
Hybrid working has opened up a whole host of opportunities but it’s also asked different questions of employers too.
Is your workplace fit for purpose? Does the space foster team working and a positive culture? Could your office be designed in a different way to create a more engaging experience for employees and visitors alike?
Accent Housing identified the need to establish a new Peterborough base, giving its regional team the opportunity to come together and collaborate, whenever they need to.
But its brief wasn’t only about collaboration. Accent Housing is a house builder that works with a variety of trusted contractors as well as office-based staff answering client queries, so it needed a dual purpose base that felt like a home and functioned like a drop-in space. The acoustics of the new office would need to be just right to accommodate teammates performing very different functions.
Although the office space was vacant, there were other occupiers present within the building so our team would need to negotiate the challenges of functioning in a live environment. We would also need to establish relationships with incumbent suppliers too, ensuring that everything from electrical surveys to air conditioning was handled quickly and efficiently.
WestPoint is a beautiful, light filled, canalside office building and we’re proud to have worked with Accent Housing to deliver a fit out that does justice to the location.
Visitors to the new workplace are greeted by a welcome lounge which flows through to a large, open plan tech hub area, occupying the centre of the space.
It has been complemented by bookable deskspace, workbays, high tables and hot benching areas for informal meetings, with several flexible meeting and training room spaces, a boardroom and private meeting booths.
Employees benefit from the creation of a cafe area that supports team working and socialising, with a central dining table, island unit and bench seating. Our design has placed a large emphasis on wellness, maximising natural daylight and including features such as a wellbeing room.
A neutral colour palette connects various facets of the space, while the use of branding creates a real sense of identity and belonging.
Sustainability has also been a key focal point of the fit out. Around 80% of the office’s existing glass partitions have been reformed and reused in new locations, while carpets, teapoints and M&E have been retained wherever possible, making the available budget work that bit harder.
As a construction specialist, Accent Housing understood many of the challenges we faced during the design and delivery of the project. Their friendly, practical and helpful approach allowed us to work in partnership to deliver exactly the sort of space that was needed.
Accent Housing does such a brilliant job in providing homes for others but this project is all about creating a central ‘home’ for its people. Collaboration is at the heart of every thriving workplace and has become especially important for companies that have adopted hybrid working. Our design has delivered a multipurpose space with high-quality acoustics, which works as well for those handling customer queries, as it does for people calling into the office for a meeting.
We are delighted to be working with Office Principles North on our new Peterborough office. The office design considers our Accent values and branding at its core, providing an inspirational and flexible working environment for our staff as we embrace modern ways of working.